A Year in Reading: Maureen Corrigan

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Russell Shorto’sThe Island at the Center of the World had me at page one. It opens with the description of a lone researcher deep inside the New York State Library in Albany, patiently translating some 12,000 manuscript sheets that contain the lost history of 17th-century Dutch Manhattan. Dutch Manhattan? In the course I’ve taught for 20 years at Georgetown University about the literature of New York City, I’d always been content to dispense with the Dutch by mouthing the conventional wisdom that they left behind no significant literary record. That was before Shorto’s superb book brought me up short. The first Dutch settlers of Manhattan may not have been “literary,” but they sure could write…and write.

Shorto’s book, which is partly drawn from those Old Dutch documents, is a revelatory read not just for anyone who loves New York City and wants to take a time travel trip back to its earliest European origins, but also for anyone curious about how the wide open commercial and cultural character of “New Netherland” shaped the destiny of what would become the United States of America. A bonus of The Island at the Center of the World is Shorto’s evocative style: though steeped in scholarship, he knows how to dramatize the past through outsized personalities (Henry Hudson, Peter Minuit) and by poetically re-imagining the familiar. As Shorto says at the end of his introduction:

[T]his book invites you to do the impossible: to strip from your mental image of Manhattan Island all associations of power, concrete, and glass; to put time into full reverse, unfill the massive landfills, and undo the extensive leveling programs that flattened hills and filled gullies. To witness the return of waterfalls, to watch freshwater ponds form in place of asphalt intersections; to let buildings vanish and watch stands of pin oak, sweetgum, basswood, and hawthorne take their place.

Of all the books I’ve read this year — old and new — Shorto’s 2005 account of Dutch Manhattan is the one I keep thinking about and want to make time to reread.

Maureen Corrigan
, book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, is a critic-in-residence and lecturer at Georgetown University. Her latest book is So We Read On, about the amazing "second act" of The Great Gatsby.

Robert Moses had more influence over the entire tri-state region -- and arguably the entire United States -- than any other person in the 20th century. It’s incredible how he operated “legally” outside of the reach of any legal authorities

With the year drawing to a close, so too is our Year in Reading series. We at The Millions would like to thank all of those who contributed to the series as well as all the helpful folks who assisted us in putting together such a great group of participants.Though we are undoubtedly biased, it was a thrill to watch the series unfold this year. We discovered that Joshua Henkinliked a book by Charles D'Ambrosio, who liked a book by Nam Le, who liked a book by Toni Morrison. We discovered that two highlyregarded authors (named Charles) were fans of Slash's memoir this year. And we saw that many of our most admired writers were rediscovering (or discovering for the first time) literary legends like Saul Bellow, James Cain, Richard Brautigan, Anthony Trollope, Dostoevsky, Melville, and the aforementioned Toni Morrison.We'd also like to thank all of our readers for a great year at The Millions. It was another year with more visitors than we've ever had before, but the numbers alone shed little light on the best aspects of The Millions this year, which came through in the edifying and enlightening discussion spearheaded and spurred on by our readers, guests, and regular contributors.We'll do a little roundup of some of the best posts at The Millions this year in a few days, but in the meantime, we're going to take a breather from the breakneck pace of A Year in Reading.As we enjoy the last few days of 2008, we invite all of you to take part in A Year in Reading by finishing this sentence in the comments or on your own blog: "The best book I read all year was..."

One of my favorite things about this book is that even now, years after I first read it, I’m able to recall all sorts of “fun facts” from it. For instance, did you know that the first European settlers in New Jersey were… Swedes?

Nam Le's debut collection of short stories, The Boat, was awarded the Dylan Thomas Prize and the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" Award. It was also chosen as a New York Times Notable Book. Le is currently the fiction editor of the Harvard Review.It might seem unadventurous to nominate a book recently proclaimed by the New York Times as the best work of American fiction of the last 25 years, but in fact, when the list came out, some people may remember that an immediate, insidious backlash began against the winner, Toni Morrison'sBeloved (accusing it, among other things, of being the obvious and politically correct choice), and I'll confess that I, too, found it all too easy to get swept along - especially given my one-eyed barracking for two of the runners-up, Cormac McCarthy'sBlood Meridian and Don DeLillo'sUnderworld. Due to no fault of its own, the book - which I'd last read in high school - sank in my sheeplike (and sheepish) estimation. Then, this year, more than two years later, I finally returned to it. What I rediscovered stunned me: Beloved was a work of incomparable moral and aesthetic focus, in which structure, the actualised "intricate patterning" toward which Fitzgerald strove all his life, had elevated itself into ethical argument; in which memory-play, slippage and narrative deferral guided the reader - as all great books do - to a new mode of reading. It was a book planted deep in dirt and human muck, in a history where nothing - not feeling, nor language - remained uncompromised. And yet - and yet - it contained the sternness of heart and steadiness of will and stoutness of authority to claim this piece of history and completely possess it - to render it into testimony and prophecy both. Truly, I realised, Beloved was one of those rare works that remakes the whole enterprise; that marks, with one cruel stroke, beginning and epitome.More from A Year in Reading 2008

"I would've been a rich man if it hadn't been for Florida." -- Henry FlaglerCongratulations! You've founded the most successful company in the history of industry, and you're rich beyond imagination. What do you do now? Do you do something traditional, like your partner, John D. Rockefeller, and reinvest your capital to secure an empire for your family? Or do you do something bold, something creative? How about developing a new hotel? Sounds great! Even better: you could build two of them, among the finest ever been built -- the Ponce de León in St. Augustine, and the Royal Poinciana in Palm Beach. You can call your friend Thomas Edison, who's recently harnessed residential electricity, and have him install light fixtures so new and so foreign to your guests that they refuse to flip the switches themselves because they're terrified of being electrocuted. Marvelous! Splendid! But now you find that even this doesn't do it. No, not quite. Your ambition is insatiable. You direct your attention to the state at large, to its pristine Eastern coastline, stretching 350 miles from Jacksonville to the end of the mainland, where an unnamed town exists as just a speck on a map -- a place populated by fewer than 500 people. This place is great, you think. Why not share its splendor with the masses? Why not make it so that anyone with the money can traverse the sunny coast by rail? This could be the next great American frontier! This could be the country's greatest tourist attraction! New Yorkers and Ohioans (like yourself) could come down in the winter months to rest their heels in the sand, to fish in the daytime and wait out the snow. And as a businessman -- or at least that's what you call yourself -- you think of the return on investment. You think of pineapples shipped north from the perpetual warm weather. You think of oranges and sugar. Perfect! You form another company, the Florida East Coast Railway. You do what you set out to do. By 1896, a train leaving Jackonsville in the morning can arrive at the foot of Biscayne Bay that night. The town starts booming, so much so that its grateful settlers offer to name it after you. "Flagler," you think, has a nice ring to it, but you're a modest man -- or so you tell yourself -- and so you ask that they keep the place's Native title of "Mayaimi," or "Big Water," inspired by the state's great inland sea, Lake Okeechobee, located 80 miles to the north. It's all falling into place now. It's gelling together, except again you're bored. You need excitement. Come on, now! You're the second wealthiest man on the planet. You are quickly becoming the most significant person to ever set foot in Florida: four years ago, you persuaded the state's legislature to alter their constitution, to make "incurable insanity" into acceptable grounds for divorce. You did this because, at 61 years old, you've fallen in love with a 23 year old and you need to get out of your second marriage. (The law is repealed immediately after you go through with it.) So you get back to scheming and again your gaze turns southward. This time, you notice the state's busiest and most populous city, which also happens to be its southernmost: Key West. This, you think, is your chance to leave a real legacy, to reshape not only the state you've adopted as your own, but also the nation itself. By extending your railway 128 miles south from its current terminus in Miami, you'll be able to harness the potential of the nation's 13th-busiest shipping port. A couple problems, is all. One, how the Hell do you build a railroad over the ocean? The islands between Key West and Miami are faintly islands at all; they're limestone and coral-encrusted speed bumps for waves. Their highest point is 16 feet above sea level, but the majority sits between three and four. Miles of open water span between each one, so you're going to have to hopscotch your way down to the Conch Republic. Two, the proposed route will cost more than the 742-mile California installment of the Union Pacific Railroad. Three, it's hurricane season. Four, you're getting pretty old. No matter, you think. We've done it before; we'll do it again. But how, exactly? For that, you'll need to read Les Standiford'sLast Train to Paradise, the best book I've read all year.
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